Originally Posted by
Volume
May I suggest you read the entire article and not just the title. Here's the second sentence in that article:“
In general, the reason we have have so much confidence in the performance of wing is we’re using the same material systems as the 787 wing. We understand the 787 wing very well,” said
Bob Feldmann, general manager of the 777X program, in a meeting with journalists on Tuesday. “
We’re evolving the architecture of the 787 wing to fit this bigger airplane,” he said.
Note that last statement: "
We're evolving the architecture of the 787 wing...." The 777 wing has several structural departures relative to the 787 wing (not the least of which is a wing fold mechanism) and even more aerodynamic departures. It even uses a different airfoil section than 787 and has a different twist. What 787 provided was tons of data that was used to finesse the 777 wing design, both structurally and aerodynamically. “
It (wind tunnel testing) is just a confirmation of the models that we used, which are mature models, because based on 787 wing."
Remember, the 787 was Boeing's first composite wing. This was all new territory for Boeing, and LOTS of lessons were learned in its design and fabrication. Those lessons and the later flight performance and operational data were all rolled into the design of the 777 wing. But the wing design itself is significantly different for many reasons.